Woman Charges £5k Per Wedding As Professional Bridesmaid

Professional bridesmaid Tiffany Wright has lifted the lid on her undercover role and some of the weirder tasks she's been asked to perform by brides-to-be for an up-to-£5k fee per wedding.

Tiffany, 36, who started her business two years ago, says that nothing is too much trouble when it comes to making a bride's day, and everything in the lead up to it, everything she'd dreamed it would be.

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She began her business by planning elaborate proposals for couples who would later come to her and ask if she did wedding planning.

"The idea of planning weddings really freaks me out because there are too many people," Tiffany explained, "So I invented a job where i could just help the bride deal with all her dramas. And that's where the professional bridesmaid was born."

Tiffany from Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, has helped over 150 brides now, and been an actual bridesmaid at peoples' weddings seven times - on other occasions, she's acted more as a bridal personal assistant. So why did she think there was a gap in the market for this role?

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"I wanted to be a professional bridesmaids because I saw so many brides on their wedding day getting really, really stressed about things that people weren't able to them with," Tiffany explains.

"I'm hired to help with the emotional dramas like firing a bridesmaid, dealing with nightmare family members - anything that's going to stress the bride out, I'm there to solve it."

She begins by meeting the bride and interrogating them so she knows all the details to be able to pass as a friend and go undercover: "That can be anything from who her first kiss was to what her great-great-grandmother was called," she says. "This is so that, on the day, nobody can trip me up and it seems as if I've known her for years and years."

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The norm is to claim she met the bride on a gap year or that they met years ago on holiday and tracked each other down again through social media.

That puts other bridesmaids and close friends of the bride off the scent of who she really is and explains why she's suddenly come back on the scene."It's a little bit like being in the SAS because I have to create a whole new persona," admits Tiffany.

Tiffany claims she's never been discovered in her role as a professional but has had a few close shaves with maid-of-honours sitting her down and interrogating her.

Tiffany claims she has had a lot of "crazy" requests from bride: from stalking the groom on his stag do, to firing all the other bridesmaids and dying her hair brunette to match the other bridesmaids.

"No request is too much," she admits.

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Her 'Bridezilla' package is most popular. But isn't the term, 'Bridezilla', a bit problematic? "They seem to wear the title like a badge of honour," Tiffany assures us.

This package means that the bride can make any request from nine months before the big day to the minute before the ceremony.

"It can be things like: 'How do I deal with my warring parents at my wedding?' or 'How do I make sure that my hen do is the sort of hen do that I want and not the ones that my bridesmaids want?'"

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Tiffany's role is to be there to be on the other end of the phone for "all the emotional things" no matter how much of a curve ball it is and she will iron things out to make sure everything goes smoothly.

She said: "Sometimes not having a personal or family connection to someone can be a bonus with some tasks.

"It can be a difficult job at times but it's unique and I couldn't wish for a better career despite the bridezillas."

The best part of her job? "I get to go to loads of amazing weddings, I get to wear beautiful bridesmaid dresses and I get to eat lots of wedding cake."

Amelia Jones

Amelia is a freelance journalist and editor specialising in beauty, health, fitness and lifestyle. She has previously worked for titles including Women's Health, Cosmopolitan, Stylist, Red and the Mail on Sunday. Follow her on Instagram @ameliajeanjones or contact her via email at ameliajeanjones@gmail.com.